Planescape: Torment
Planescape: Torment & Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is a remake compilation of Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. It was published by Skybound Games and was released for the Nintendo Switch in October 2019. Gameplay Planescape: Torment In Planescape: Torment, the player takes the role of "The Nameless One", an immortal man with amnesia on a quest to learn why. Exploration around the painted scenery is accomplished by clicking on the ground to move, or on objects and characters to interact with them. An alternative to armor is the use of magical tattoos, which can be applied to The Nameless One and certain other characters to enhance their abilities. The game begins with character creation, where the player assigns attribute points, such as strength, intelligence, and charisma, to The Nameless One. The Nameless One starts the game as a fighter class, but the player may later freely change it to a thief or wizard. The player may recruit companions over the course of the game to join the party. There are seven potential companions, but only a maximum of five may accompany The Nameless One at any given time. Conversation is frequent among party members, occurring both randomly and during conversations with other non-player characters. The gameplay often focuses on the resolution of quests through dialogue rather than combat, and many of the game's combat encounters can be resolved or avoided through dialogue or stealth. The Nameless One carries a journal, which helps the player keep track of the game's numerous quests and subplots. As The Nameless One is immortal, running out of health points usually imposes no penalty beyond respawning in a different location. Planescape: Torment uses the D&D character alignment system, in which a character's ethical and moral perspective and philosophy is determined based on axis of "good vs. evil" and "law vs. chaos", with neutrality bridging the two opposing sides. In Planescape: Torment, The Nameless One begins as "true neutral", but can be incrementally changed based on the character's actions throughout the game, with reactions from the game's non-player characters differing based on his alignment. Icewind Dale Icewind Dale's gameplay operates on a similar basis to that of Baldur's Gate, in that it incorporates a modified version of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset, with the rules' intricacies automatically computed; the game keeps track of statistics and controls dice rolling. It uses a similar user interface though with cosmetic changes, and focuses mainly on combat, often against large groups of enemies, with dialogue driving the main story. The player is able to order a character(s) to engage in movement, dialogue, combat, or other actions such as pickpocketing within each game location. Combat has a real-time as opposed to a turn-based system, though with the option of pausing at any time so the player can give the party orders which are carried out when the game is resumed. Along with the same inventory system and paper-doll mechanics, the game's story is divided into chapters, with a journal system archiving quests and notable entries on specific story-related information from non-player characters. Players begin the game by creating an adventuring party of up to six characters, either by creating new characters or importing those from a previous game. Each new character created requires the player to provide them with their name, gender, race, class, and alignment, and then determine their ability scores and weapon proficiencies. The class of a character affects what alignments are available to them, what weapons and combat styles they can use, and how proficient they can be in them. Characters designated as thieves require the player to allocate points to the various thieving skills, and spellcasters need a few 1st level spells selected for their spellbook and then one memorised for use at the start of the game. Once a party is created, characters earn experience points in the game through completing quests and defeating enemies, and level up upon earning enough. Leveling up will automatically increase a character's hit points, grants spellcasters access to more spell slots including higher levels of magic, sometimes allows additional weapon proficiencies, and allows thieves to improve their thieving abilities. Plot ''Planescape: Torment'' The game begins when The Nameless One wakes up in a mortuary. He is immediately approached by a floating skull, called Morte, who offers advice on how to escape. Morte also reads the tattoos written on The Nameless One's back, which were inked there as reminders by a previous incarnation of himself, that contain instructions to find a man named Pharod. After a conversation with the ghost of his former lover, Deionarra, and passing by enslaved undead who work at the mortuary, The Nameless One leaves to explore the slums of Sigil. He finds Pharod, who is the chief of an underground village of scavengers, and is asked to retrieved a magical bronze sphere for him before he will give answers. After returning, Pharod does so, giving him further hints to help piece together his forgotten past. Later on, The Nameless One learns from a powerful sorcerer named Lothar that the night hag Ravel Puzzlewell caused his immortality, but that she is imprisoned in a magical maze for committing crimes against the Lady of Pain. The Nameless One eventually finds a portal to enter the maze, but realizes that it requires a piece of Ravel to activate it; for this, he locates a daughter of hers and takes drops of her blood. Once in the maze, The Nameless One converses with Ravel, who asks him "what can change the nature of a man?" — a question that plays a prominent role throughout the game. Ravel is pleased with The Nameless One's answer because he offers his own thoughts; she claims she has killed many men in the past who, instead of giving their own answers, tried to guess what her answer, which they assumed was the only answer, might be. As the conversation progresses, Ravel explains that a past incarnation of The Nameless One had asked her to make him immortal. However, the ritual she performed was flawed, which causes The Nameless One to risk losing his memory each time he dies. She also reveals that the mortality she separated from him was not destroyed, and that as long as he was alive, his mortality must still be intact somewhere. Not knowing where it is, she suggests that the fallen deva Trias might know. Ravel then attempts to keep The Nameless One and his party there by force, with them having to defeat her in combat. After they do so and leave the maze, Ravel is revealed to have faked her death. A being known as The Transcendent One then appears, and also combats Ravel after a short conversation, which truly kills her. The portal that The Nameless One and his party found in the maze takes them to the city of Curst, a gate town on the border of the Outlands and Carceri, to find Trias. Finding him magically imprisoned underneath Curst, The Nameless One offers to help free him in exchange for answers. Doing so, Trias then claims not to know where The Nameless One's mortality lies, but points him in another direction. The Nameless One then visits the Outlands and Baator, where he learns that his mortality lies in a place known as the Fortress of Regrets, and that only Trias knows how to access it. Meanwhile, however, Curst has "slid" from the border of the Outlands to the neighboring chaotic plane of Carceri due to the chaos unleashed by Trias after The Nameless One freed him. After fights through the city against large groups of demons, The Nameless One and his party reach Trias, who they also fight. After Trias is weakened enough through combat, he tells The Nameless One that the portal to the Fortress of Regrets is located within Sigil's mortuary, right next to where The Nameless One awoke. In the Fortress of Regrets, The Nameless One encounters three of his past incarnations: one practical, one good, and one paranoid. The Nameless One learns that the "good" incarnation was the original man who was made immortal by Ravel, and learns that he had committed immeasurably terrible sins in his lifetime. Realizing that he would have to serve in the Blood War, an eternal war between demons and devils, when he dies, he sought to postpone death for as long as possible in order to atone for his deeds. After merging with his past incarnations through either convincing them or combat and gaining all of their combined experience and knowledge, The Nameless One confronts his mortality, which is embodied as The Transcendent One. The Transcendent One reveals that since being separated from The Nameless One, he has enjoyed his freedom and has been attempting to erase clues that might lead The Nameless One to discover the truth. Depending on the player's choice, The Nameless One then either slays The Transcendent One through combat or convinces it to rejoin with him, with either option finally bringing an end to his immortality. In the game's final scene, The Nameless One awakens near a battleground of Blood War, picking up a mace and walks toward the conflict as was originally intended. Icewind Dale In the town of Easthaven a party of adventurers resting in its tavern are met by the town's leader, Hrothgar, who invites them to join him on an expedition to investigate the town of Kuldahar, after a messenger sent from there reported of strange happenings. On the road to Kuldahar, the expedition is ambushed by frost giants, who cause an avalanche, blocking the path back to Easthaven. With only the adventurers surviving, they continue to Kuldahar and meet with Arundel, the village's archdruid, who explains that a mysterious evil force has been kidnapping villagers, and causing abnormal weather patterns and monster behaviour, resulting in the magical warmth provided by the giant tree that the village resides under to begin to recede. Asking for their help to discover the source of the evil before the tree dies, the adventurers begin by searching the Vale of Shadows, an area containing Kuldahar's crypts, due to rumours of undead creature sightings, but discover from a cursed barbarian spirit named Kresselack that the threat lies elsewhere. Reporting this back to the druid, Arundel instructs the group to retrieve an ancient scrying item called the Heartstone Gem, so he may discover the source of the evil more quickly. After finding that the gem was stolen from a temple that the druid suspected it to be in, the party travel to the caverns of Dragon's Eye, finding a number of the missing villagers being held there by lizard men, and eventually finding the gem being used by powerful demonic creature named Yxunomei. After killing Yxunomei and retrieving the gem, the party return to find Kuldahar under attack, and that a shapeshifter disguised as Arundel had attacked the archdruid. After the shapeshifter vanishes, the group find the real Arundel, who advises the party to take the Heartstone to Larrel at the fortress of the Severed Hand, the only one capable of using it now, before dying from his wounds. Arriving at the fortress, the party discover that Larrel had gone insane, and aid him with a task he mentions, helping him to regain his sanity. Using the gem, Larrel discovers the source of the evil to reside in the former dwarven city of Dorn's Deep. Fighting their way through the city, the group eventually come across the source of the evil in the form of a priest who came to the region – Brother Poquelin. Poquelin reveals himself to be a demon who was exiled from his home realm by his superiors, and that both he and Yxunomei maintained a vendetta against each other that was getting out of control. Predicting she would follow him to the material plane, the demon sought a base of operation in the region to form a military force that could crush her, and while doing so, stumbled upon the ancient artifact Crenshinibon, which he claims had been "calling" to him. Poquelin immediately used its power to help him amass an army that he planned to use in conquering the lands of Icewind Dale, until Yxunomei's activities around Kuldahar led to the formation of Hrothgar's expedition. Seeking to stop it, the demon had his frost giant minions crush the expedition, but did not count on the adventurers' survival being a problem until they recovered the Heartstone Gem, forcing him to eliminate Arundel. Despite the party having found someone else to use it, Poquelin had managed to build up his forces, which he soon sent to Easthaven. After fighting with him, the party finds itself transported back to Easthaven, which is now in ruins. After freeing the surviving villagers, the local cleric of Tempus, Everard, informs the party that Poquelin is going after Jerrod's Stone, a mystical object housed under the town's temple, which acts as a seal on a portal to the Nine Hells of Baator that was opened during a major battle between the combined might of the barbarian tribes and an army of a powerful mage, and which was sealed shut by the sacrifice of the shaman Jerrod who led the barbarians in the conflict. Gaining entry into the demon's crystal tower that enveloped the temple, the group discover that Poquelin's true intention was to reopen the portal contained within the Stone, allowing him to conquer the North with an army of demons at his command. Although he successfully achieves this, Everard, having shunned the tale of Jerrod's sacrifice until finally understanding what he did, throws himself into the portal and seals it off at the cost of his life. The party use the time he buys them to fight Poquelin in his true form as the devil Belhifet, and manage to defeat him, banishing him to the Nine Hells and escaping the tower as it collapses. In time, Easthaven eventually recovers, and the town is reconstructed. In a twist ending, it quickly transpires that the game's narrator, was really Belhifet, who spent a mandatory century of imprisonment at the hands of the adventurers that is now close to end, and that he will soon walk the Prime Material once more to seek his revenge. Reception Category:Nintendo Switch games Category:2019 video games Category:Role-playing games Category:Dungeons & Dragons games Category:Video game compilations Category:Remakes Category:Licensed games Category:Beamdog games Category:Skybound Games games